Here Are Some Details From The January 1969 Issue of ‘Road & Track’ You May Have Missed

Have you been in a dentist’s office in 1970 to 1975 recently? If not, then you likely haven’t encountered this 1969 issue of Road & Track. Also, you probably are overdue for a fluoride treatment; do you think the government can do all the mind control it needs to do with just the fluoride in the water? It can’t. And while I can’t help with the fluoride, I can help with that issue of R&T, because I happened to find a copy recently and am more than happy to share it with you.

Now, due to a childhood promise I made to veteran funnyman Slappy White, I am forbidden to share anything of real value from old copies of Road & Track, Field & Stream, Guns & Ammo, Clam & Shell, and any other periodical with an ampersand in the middle of the name.

So, with that in mind, you’ll have to just make do with some of the more trivial bits and ads and other non-significant clippings from the issue. It’ll be fun! Mildly!

You know what kind of performance cars I really like? Carpet performance cars. Like what I assume is being discussed in this Carpet Performance Test Report! These carpets are six times better than other viscose carpets! Do I know what a viscose carpet is? No! Did I just look it up? Kinda! Do I know any better now? A little?

You could write to them and get free carpet samples! Holy shit, carpet samples? What is this, Sex Christmas?

Look at this Pininfarina-designed Bentley; it’s quite a famous car, known as the Coupé Speziale, and was designed by Paolo Martin. It’s thought to be the inspiration for the later Rolls-Royce Camargue, but what I find most striking are those massive TV-like headlamps. They give the car a kind of peculiar look from the front, but there’s no denying this was an elegant machine.

When I was growing up, every neighborhood seemed to have at least one Volkswagen-based kit car being built in some backyard, but I don’t recall seeing ads for kit cars like these in car magazines. And yet, here one is, for the Fiberfab Avenger GT-12! This was a pretty sleek looking car, and if you weren’t familiar with kit cars, you’d be hard pressed to guess it was a Beetle pan under there.

Speaking of VW, I think we all know how influential Dole Dane Bernbach (DDB)’s ad campaign for VW was. It’s pretty clear that Volvo’s advertising was very inspired by those ads, retaining the same simple, clever ad copy and honest, even humble, tone. Here they’re using some really faint praise – a 3 mph increase in top speed – as an excuse to talk about all the other good stuff in the ’69 Volvo. It’s a clever ad.

Look, it’s another kind of VW-based kit car – a Meyers one, even, just not the famous Manx; this one is the Tow’d. This was cheaper than a Manx, and, really, almost anything – in today’s money it’d be just a bit over $3,000. You didn’t even need a whole VW chassis, just the bits at each end!

See this crude little golf cart-like vehicle? You know what makes it special? It was the first real drive-by-wire vehicle! And it was all handled via that joystick! These also used brushless Switched Reluctance Motors that are still a thing today! Too bad they only built seven of these; our pals at the Lane Museum have one!

Look at this – I had no idea that Karmann assembled AMC Javelins! What the hell? And I’ve never seen a Javelin parked next to a VW Type 3 Ghia either, now that I think about it.

And speaking of Ghia – look at this incredible thing: it’s a Checker Marathon, the famous NYC taxi, re-bodied by Ghia! It’s an extended wheelbase one, and was designed by Tom Tjaarda, recently back at Ghia, with a luxurious limo-like interior with a bar and television and all that. They called it the Centurion, and it seems to be the only one made.

Have you ever looked at an MGB or a Sunbeam Alpine or Triumph Spitfire and thought “you know what this needs? A big, honkin’ landau bar!”

Me neither.